Metabolism: Myths VS Facts

Metabolism has always been a topic of debate among both men and women. It is believed that some people have fast metabolism while some have slow metabolism. We all know someone who eats junk food and still stays slim. We all also know someone who doesn’t grow a beer belly no matter how many beers he drinks. These people cannot be superhuman, so what is it exactly that is preventing them from gaining weight?

In order to understand this fact, we need to understand what metabolism is. Metabolism is basically the rate at which the body burns calories. Metabolism can be affected by many things such as what you eat, how much you workout, the kind of exercises you do and so on. Metabolism has one rule and that is if the amount of calories taken in is the same as the amount of calories burned, then the person will remain the same size. Weight gain occurs when the consumption is more than what the body is able to get rid of and weight loss occurs when the body burns more calories than that has been taken in. Read more

What To Eat After Working Out

After working out at the gym, you must ensure that you eat the right type of food. This is because the food you eat following your workout session is the most important of all that you eat during the day. When you hit the gym, excess energy is stored in the muscles in the form of protein and glycogen and when you perform some exercises, the body uses the fuel from the pre-workout meal you have taken. When this much fuel is not enough, then the stored glycogen is used up. However, after you come back from your workout session, the muscles start to break down because the protein levels drop. In order to prevent this, you must eat food that will help you reload the depleted muscles. In this post, we will take a look at what food you must eat following your workout.

Wholegrain breakfast cereal

You can eat wholegrain breakfast cereal at any time, but you can get the most benefits out of it when you eat it after your workout. Wholesale cereals are rich in protein, fiber and carbohydrates. They are perfect for restoring the muscles that tend to break down after your training session. You can include yogurt or milk to your cereal and make it a substantial after-workout snack. Read more

High Intensity Interval Training: Best Method For Fat Loss

With the busy lives people have these days and the kind of environment we live in, everyone wants a quick fix even if it is related to losing those extra pounds. No one wants to spend hours working out at the gym or go on strict diets just to find out after a month that very little has been achieved in terms of weight loss. Fad diets don’t do a thing and it is true that there are no miracle weight loss pills available no matter how much you are willing to pay. But, there is one technique that can really help you get the body you had always wanted. This technique known as HIIT or High Intensity Interval Training is an effective method of exercising and losing weight because it boosts your metabolism and keeps your body burning fat for up to 48 hours following a single workout of 30 minutes.

Many people, especially those who don’t workout regularly are not aware of this technique. But, athletes and sports people use this technique to improve their metabolism and get rid of fat fast before they participate in competitions. In this article, we’ll take a look at what HIIT really is and the reasons which make it the best exercise method for fat loss and better health. Read more

Fitness and Motivation Quotes

Commit to be fit. – Author Unknown
Will is a skill. – Jillian Michaels
Strive for progress, not perfection. – Author Unknown
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. – Wayne Gretzky
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. – Mark Twain
Energy and persistence conquer all things. – Benjamin Franklin
Exercise should be regarded as tribute to the heart. – Gene Tunney
I’m so unfamiliar with the gym, I call it James! – Ellen DeGeneres
You want me to do something… tell me I can’t do it. – Maya Angelou
The finish line is just the beginning of a whole new race. – Unknown
Motivation will almost always beat mere talent. – Norman R. Augustine
Fear is what stops you… courage is what keeps you going. – Unknown
Exercise relieves stress. Nothing relieves exercise. – Animal Crossing
A good woman keeps her mind right and her body tight. – Habeeb Akande
It’s never too late to become what you might have been. – George Eliot
Your body is a temple, but only if you treat it as one. – Astrid Alauda
The only valid excuse for not exercising is paralysis. – Moira Nordholt
If your dog is fat, you’re not getting enough exercise. – Author Unknown
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise. – A.A. Milne
Fitness – if it came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body. – Cher
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. – Jim Ryan
If I can see it and believe it, then I can achieve it. – Arnold Schwarzenegger,
It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not. – Anonymous
I consider my refusal to go to the gym today as resistance training. – Author Unknown
While doing yoga we are more ourselves, and more than ourselves. – Valerie Jeremijenko

Grapefruit Juice Promotes Weight Loss and Fights Diabetes

Can drinking grapefruit juice induce weight loss and lower the risk of developing diabetes?

A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley claims that Grapefruit juice may help combat the negative effects of a high-fat diet. The research published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE suggests that the fruit could replace “metformin”, a medicine used to treat type 2 diabetes, and may also be helpful in preventing weight gain as well as decreasing blood glucose levels.

Previously, several studies have also claimed that grapefruit could be used for cancer prevention, cleansing, detoxification, cellular regeneration, lowering cholesterol, heart health maintenance, Lupus nephritis, rheumatoid arthritis and weight loss. However, Andreas Stahl and Joseph Napoli, the UC Berkeley faculty members who led the new study say that validity of such studies can be questioned Read more

Why Breakfast Eaters Are More Active and Slimmer?

Often you have heard people mention that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Well, some might disregard this and conclude that the late night meal is most important or rather have a perception that lunch is more important. Certainly, breakfast is most important and this article argues this idea out.

Just like a car would require fuel to function, so does the body needs food to function perfectly. Think about this ‘break-fast’. The main reason why an early meal is termed as breakfast is simply because it breaks the fasting that you have been going through all night long as you sleep.

Medics argue that a meal taken in the morning is very important since it increases the body’s metabolic rate (the process of burning down calories present in the body system). Once breakfast is taken it initiates the first gear in the body to burn down the calories and would continue doing this throughout the day. Read more

Foods to Help Gain Muscle Mass

Body builders in the gym normally strive to achieve one thing; building muscle. As a matter of fact, most would do anything if not everything to ensure that they build some muscles on them.

The secret to this is very simple; dieting. Eating healthy foods is the key to ensuring that you build muscle within a shorter period of time. However, one thing that should be on your fingertips is that, there are foods specifically meant to boost muscle growth. These are the foods that you ought to be looking for. Fortunately, this critique singles out the top foods that will ensure that your muscles build as desired.

Lean Beef
In order to build muscles, it is essential that you take in more protein along with other nutrients. Lean beefs is an excellent source of protein and calories. 3 servings of lean beef will offer 360 calories and 60 grams of protein. This comes along with other important nutrients including: vitamin B, iron and zinc. In addition to all these, you would be getting the best form of protein to help build your muscles. It should come to your awareness that proteins obtained from animal products are not the same. There are those that are more effective than others depending on the demands at hand. In this case, it is recommended that you eat lean beef to boost on muscle growth. Read more

Tips for Burning More Calories in Less Time

In everything that we do, there is a fact of time that we all need to watch on. As a matter of fact, we all try our best to ensure that we carry out most of the activities within the shortest time possible. In relation to working out, it can be so discouraging if you take a year to lose a few pounds that you would have lost in weeks. Certainly, this happens to those that do not know how to burn calories in an efficient manner. The last thing that should happen to you is to visit the gym on a regular basis without seeing any results or any improvement.
Experts always claim that there is a solution to every problem. Indeed this is true considering the fact that there is perfect strategy that would help you in losing calories within a short period of time. This implies that by employing this strategy, chances are that you would obtain your goals hence preventing any form of frustration.
First and foremost, the main thing that you need to work on is your metabolism rate. This should be high to ensure that you burn any calories that you gain throughout the day. In addition to this, the way you workout should also be altered to match with your calorie-burn demands.
Before getting into detail, it is worth pointing out that losing weight is a gradual process and you should adjust your goals to ensure that they are realistic. Remember, the idea behind losing weight is also psychological and you need a well-motivated attitude to ensure that you succeed in this.

Speed and alertness
If you have been working out for close to 2 hours you need to reduce this to 1 hour but the intensity of the workout should be increased. This will ensure that you focus on your speed of training and alertness in the routines that you perform. If this poses to be a daunting task your trainer should offer you training routines that suit your abilities. For example, if you are used to training legs alone and heading home, you should adjust to train legs within 30 minutes and add in cardio workout for the next 30 minutes. Rest assured that by adjusting your workout and focusing on speed, you would be burning a lot of calories within a short period of time. Read more

Mistakes That Prevent You from Losing Weight

Probably you have been working out for close to a month or a year now and yet there are no results gained in terms of losing weight. If this is the case then chances are there are certain things that you are doing and you should not be doing them. Failing to achieve set targets is one of the discouraging things that people go through each day and quit trying. Please do not quit while on the right track. All you need to do is to avoid the mistakes that are singled out below:

Failing to drink water regularly
8 glasses of water is the recommended water intake that one should drink in a day. The good thing about taking water is that it ensures that the body is kept hydrated. As a matter of fact, research proves that taking water before eating reduces the amount of food that one would have eaten. This means that eventually there would be a reduction in weight since food portions are reduced.

Dieting and forgetting about resistance training
One of the most famous ways of losing weight that women try is crash dieting. Unfortunately this does not work at all. The only thing that occurs during crash dieting is that muscle weights are lost. This implies that you might have the impression that you weigh less and yet you are the flabby person that you used to be. Read more

Health Benefits of Stretching

The first thing that people do when they hit the gym is to engage in stretching. This is the first and the most important thing to do before working out. This does not work in the gym only, even those that run as their physical activities have to stretch first before running. Experienced trainers argue that stretching ensures that any form of injuries is prevented. It makes a lot of sense if you are required to stretch prior to working out. Remember you muscles have been idle and the last thing that you should do is to tear them up by training abruptly. In addition to ensuring that you are not injured, stretching is known to increase your flexibility and relieving one from pain. This critique discuses other benefits of stretching to the body and your overall health.

Increasing the blood flow
As earlier stated, before training the body was totally at rest. This infers that there are some parts of the body that probably were not receiving blood. Engaging in training without stretching makes the parts to swell due to tissue hardening. Therefore, stretching ensures that blood flow occurs to all the parts of the body. The fascia is opened up meaning the body can now be exercised in any way. Pain will be prevented at all costs and if this had occurred then healing would be initiated after proper stretching. Read more